


With a Twist

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-20
Updated: 2011-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleeping in a run-down motel can be a real pain in the nuts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With a Twist

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [](http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/profile)[**hoodie_time**](http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/) tags challenge, prompt: surgery. Set mid-S3.

When the old lady behind the motel office counter, bundled up in about four sweaters and hovering near a kerosene heater, told him that the heat was out in the whole motel, Dean's first instinct was to turn around, get back in the nice, warm Impala and go find somewhere else to stay. He stood with his hand flat on Robert Johnson's credit card on the counter and closed his eyes, leaning into the heavy wooden surface. The fact was he was exhausted, worn down by too much hunting, too many days on the road running down the demons they'd let slip out of hell. Sam was no better, sacked out in the passenger seat, so tired the slam of the car door hadn't woken him.

Hell, even his girl was feeling the strain, her engine running ragged with the need for some decent maintenance. She wasn't about to give out on him, not yet, but she deserved more than a perfunctory fluids check whenever Dean had a chance to catch his breath. And they were in the middle of nowhere, an hour at least from another motel. The night was cold, but not freezing; they'd be safe as long as they had a roof and four walls around them.

He opened his eyes and pushed the credit card the rest of the way across the counter. "You, uh, I don't suppose you have another one of those space heaters around here?"

She didn't, but it was hard to be mad at her, the way she apologized like it actually bothered her to put people up in a room like a refrigerator. She piled Dean's arms high with a four foot high stack of folded blankets and comforters and promised that the hot water heater worked. Dean figured it would have to be good enough. They could bundle up for sleep and take hot showers the next day before heading back out on the road.

He pulled the car around in front of the room and then reached across to pop Sam's door open. He smirked at Sam's confusion as he tilted out toward the pavement, almost tumbling out before righting himself.

"Thanks a lot, Dean," Sam grumbled.

"You're welcome. Let's get this shit inside our room, which by the way doesn't have any heat, so that we can both get some sleep, okay?"

"No heat?" Sam heaved himself out of the passenger seat, and Dean could see him doing the same mental math he'd done in the motel office: sucky situation + no better option = might as well stay. "Yeah, okay."

Sam shouldered two of the duffels, and Dean grabbed the third, the pile of blankets still clutched against his body. Exhaustion dragged at every step, and as soon as they were inside he dropped his duffel on the floor and split the blankets between the beds. He kicked off his shoes, stripped off his jacket, and popped the top button on his jeans, then spread his half of the blankets out over the bed one by one.

Underneath, the sheets were like ice against his hands and face, but he rolled around until the edges of the covers were all tucked in around him, and the heat of his breath and his body quickly turned it into a warm cocoon. He ducked his head down into that warmth, and he was only vaguely aware of Sam moving around the room, getting ready for bed himself. The darkness behind his eyelids deepened when the light switched off, and Dean sank into sleep.

~~~

Dean was dreaming something about a waitress and an unlimited buffet of beers of the world, but the need to piss pulled him into the waking world, all of those smooth curves and beautiful sparkling bottles left behind. Without doing anything more than lifting his chin out of his bundle of covers, he could see the alarm clock, and six a.m. was way too early to be awake after the week he'd had. He steeled himself against the chill he could feel on his face and told himself that he could come back to bed after he hit the head, sleep until breakfast was more appealing than sleep. Or maybe until Sam woke up and went to get them coffee. Either way, he had to get his ass out of bed before he pissed himself because he hadn't done that in, well, years.

Taking a deep breath of cold air to brace himself, he pushed off the covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He'd slept hard, barely moved all night, and his back was telling him all about it--tight and stiff, same as his hips. He stood up, shivering in the chill air of the room, and hurried to the bathroom. Sweet, sweet relief.

His business done, he stood in front of the sink and stretched, twisting his body around to the right in an attempt to pull the tension out of his lower back. He swung back around to the other side, and suddenly pain flashed through him, like his whole body ripped open from the middle. He stumbled and caught himself on the sink, leaning heavily on both hands, his arms trembling under the onslaught of pain.

The pain started to pull in from the edges, intensifying toward the center of his body, and as Dean's stomach cramped he hung his head between his shoulders and heaved up bile and the fetid remains of the previous night's driving snacks--coffee and Slim Jims and those pretzels you could hold like cigars. The pain settled into a hot ball of agony between Dean's legs, and his jeans suddenly felt far too tight. He unzipped them and let them fall to the bathroom floor.

In his boxers, Dean made his way back to the bed, reduced to an awkward shambling shuffle because his right hip didn't want to bend, didn't want to move. When he finally collapsed on the bed, covers pulled over his naked, _fucking_ freezing legs, he closed his eyes and tried to breathe, tried to get his shit together. Had to be a pulled groin muscle, that's all. He'd done that before, and he didn't remember it hurting anything like this burning torture in his balls, but he always tried to let pain go, once it was over. Maybe he'd just gotten really good at it.

Dean breathed and breathed and swallowed against another surge of nausea. He looked across the room, and Sam was still asleep, his own pile of covers pulled up over his head, just a mop of shaggy hair visible. Dean bit his lip and tried to think about hobbling back across the room to get a couple of pain pills out of the med kit, but it felt like somebody was under the covers trying to rip him apart. Like the hell hounds had come early and started with the underbelly, tearing into his tender parts. Dean took a steadying breath in and pushed that thought away.

Tentatively, he pulled back the blankets and tugged the waist band of his boxers away from his belly. Feeling like Wesley Crusher in that bullshit nostalgia Stephen King movie, Dean looked down. Even in the dim light of the room, what he saw wasn't normal--his right nut was swollen, noticeably bigger than the left, and shaded pink edging towards red. Not normal. Entirely fucked up.

Probably witches.

"Sam." Dean's voice came out rough and low, not nearly loud enough to wake his sleeping brother. He coughed, tried to swallow his own spit against the bitter taste of puke. "Sam! Sam wake the fuck up!"

"Mmmrf." Sam poked his head out from under the covers.

"Sam!"

Sam tumbled out of bed then, landing on his feet as the covers fell away from him. "What? Fuck, fuck, it's cold." He pulled his arms around himself, looking like the world's tallest, most foul-mouthed five year-old.

Another starburst of pain spread out from Dean's crotch and he bit back a groan, clenching his teeth until his jaw ached. "We got worse problems than the cold," he ground out between his teeth. "Got cursed by some kind of fucking witch or something. You gotta find the hex bag, gotta get it the fuck out of here." The pain deepened, and he moaned, unable to hold it back.

"What the hell?" Sammy sounded awake, finally, and as Dean bent over his lap he could hear Sam's hurried footsteps across the carpet. "What's going on?"

Dean looked up to see Sam standing over him. "Somebody cursed the family jewels. Getting ready to--fuck--to fucking explode or something."

Sam's mouth twisted, and his hands drifted to cover his own crotch; Dean couldn't blame him. "Umm. You're sure it's a curse. You didn't--"

"This is not any goddamn STD, Sam. And I didn't take a hit to the sack last night." Dean had to stop and pant against the pain for a moment until he got a handle on it again. "I just woke up, took a piss, and BAM. Find the fucking hex bag before I hurl again."

Sam held up his hands. "Okay, okay. It would have to be in here if it hit you this morning."

"No shit."

"The bags!"

"I'm on it, Jesus." Dean closed his eyes, focusing on not screaming from the sharp, ever-growing pain, but he could hear the thud of clothes and shoes falling out of their personal duffels, the clatter of weapons and tools from the gear bag. Sam's hurried movements as he searched through their belongings.

"Maybe, maybe somebody put it in here, in the room. Like, like a booby trap."

Dean listened over the gusting of his own breath as Sam started in the bathroom, but the room was little more than bare fixtures, not many good places to hide a bag in there. Then the slam of drawers opening and closing, the scuffle of Sam crawling around on the floor looking under things, the rattle of hangers in the closet. He had to find it. Had to find it soon or Dean was going to die right there in the cheap motel room. Waves of heat and cold washed over him, and when he heard Sam say, "I'm sorry, man," his stomach grew even sicker.

He opened his eyes to look at Sam standing next to the bed. "You didn't find anything?"

Sam grimaced and held up a shriveled old condom between the tips of two fingers. "Probably not a hex bag."

"Burn it anyway." Dean's voice burned his throat. "Fuck, burn it anyway."

"Okay, okay fine." Sam grabbed a lighter and the small bottle of lighter fluid and stalked out through the door to the parking lot. Dean panted against the pain and looked down to see his nut was swollen larger, redder, like some kind of sick tomato in his crotch. Two minutes later, Sam came back inside with hope on his face. "Anything?"

"No. No, fuck. Fuck this hurts."

Sam's forehead scrunched up like Dean was a puzzle to solve, and he headed over to his laptop. "Let me look something up. Hold on, okay?"

"Hurts too much to hold onto it, Sammy."

Sam's mouth turned down in a sick grimace, and he set to work typing. "It started suddenly, right?"

"Ungh, yeah. Out of nowhere."

"You said you got up, went to the bathroom, that's all?"

"What the hell do you think? I got out of bed into this damn refrigerator, I took a piss and tried to stretch out the kink in my back from driving all goddamn day yesterday!" Dean's voice rose as he went on, rough and raw with pain.

"And it started how long ago?"

"I don't know. A month? Half an hour?"

"Okay, we're going to the hospital right now."

"No." Dean shook his head. "No fucking way, we need to call Bobby for this. Somebody."

"No, look. There's this thing called testicular torsion."

The phrase alone made Dean contemplate puking on the collection of covers on his lap.

"This says it can happen from standing up into a cold room from a warm bed, if something gets twisted wrong, you know? If you don't get surgery, the testicle will _die_."

And that was it, Dean's stomach clenched into a knot and he puked up a pathetic stream of bile onto the nice old lady's blankets. He was still coughing when Sam started to pull him out of the bed. The room took on a slight tilt as he stood up, but with Sam's help he wrestled his legs into a pair of sweat pants and stepped into his unlaced boots. He couldn't walk, the movement of his leg against his swollen ball too much to stand, but Sam pulled him out of there more or less on his own two feet and Dean was vaguely grateful.

Sam dumped him in the passenger seat and backed away when Dean fended off the seatbelt. The drive to the hospital was torture, every bump in the road rattling up between Dean's legs, every stop and start changing the pressure in new and terrible ways. But then there was the ER entrance and a wheelchair, Sam's arms hoisting him from car to chair.

There was an exam room and drugs, and the pain-softening haze of the pain meds was the only thing that kept him from breaking the hand of the grabby doctor who touched the hot, swollen hell of his sack. The doctor repeated the same shit Sammy said about the testicle _dying_ if it didn't get blood flow soon, and explained that Dean could maybe die from surgery, the usual blather. Dean signed the paper, and then there were more drugs and everything fell away, even the pain.

~~~

Dean woke up to fuzziness and pain, though the pain was different in some way he couldn't find the brain power to figure out. More throbby, less explodey. He swallowed and coughed against the dryness in his throat, and then he was rolling over and dry-heaving into a little plastic bowl. His back was warm, a big hand that had to be Sam's rubbing circles and holding him up.

His stomach calmed, he rolled back down, and everything turned black again.

~~~

When Dean woke up again, the first thing he heard was a tapping sound. A quiet clatter, in a familiar, unsteady cadence. Dean tried to lick his dry lips, but he didn't get far with his tongue just as dry. He tilted his head toward the sound, and when he opened his eyes he saw Sam. Sitting in one chair with his legs stretched out onto a second, he had the laptop on his knees. Dean reached up to rub the gunk from his eyes, startled when his hand came trailing an IV line.

"Hey." Sam looked over, a small smile on his face. "You awake for real now?"

"Mmm, I--" The word ended with the dry catch of his throat.

"Here." Sam held out a cup with a straw, and Dean grabbed it with his untethered hand, sucked down water until his stomach started to tense up.

"Thanks." Dean's voice sounded almost normal to him, a little rough maybe, a little slow. "Guess I'm awake."

"You remember what the doctor said."

"What he--shit." Dean yanked up the covers, pushed aside the flimsy hospital gown and saw the glaring white of a bandage. Even with the drugs he still felt in his system, his heart rose and thudded heavy in his throat. "Did they--was it okay?"

"Everything's fine. Or well, probably kind of fucked up at the moment." Sam shifted uncomfortably, crossing his legs even as he stood. "But it's all there. You should have a full recovery, no problems."

"Better not be, or I'll have to come back here and kick somebody's ass."

"Just as soon as you're done resting for a couple weeks, right?"

"Yeah right, just give me a chance to get this crap out of my system, and we'll get back on the road."

"You really want to take a chance of messing up the _family jewels_? I mean, what I read online says you can do fine with just one, so if you want to risk it..." Sam shrugged.

"Oh, fuck you. Fine, we'll hole up somewhere for a couple weeks."

"You probably ought to follow the rest of the instructions, too." Sam smirked, and it was the dangerous kind of smirk that meant Dean was going to seriously dislike whatever came next.

"What? Two weeks and I should be back in action, right?"

"Depends on your definition of action." Sam raised an eyebrow. "If you plan on picking up any _action_ action you might want to wait four to six weeks."

"Four to--what? Seriously?" Dean wanted to punch something but there wasn't anything within reach that was even worth hitting. "Swear to God, Sammy. I don't care how far we have to drive, we're never staying in a cold freaking room like that ever again."

"With God as your witness you'll never sleep chilly again?"

"Oh, shut up. Shut up and go get me some pudding. And then go get our shit out of that icebox. We can probably find a squat warmer than that motel."

"Okay, sure. Just remember, it could've been worse."

"How? Both nuts?"

Sam cringed, and then smirked again. "It could've really been a curse."

Dean shuddered and watched Sam leave the room. He slipped his hand under the covers and ghosted it just over the bulge of the bandage, reassuring himself that everything was there.

Spring was bearing down on him and Sam; some bad shit up ahead in the road, no doubt. But if Dean had to take the trip downstairs he was doing it with his pride intact. And his parts.


End file.
